The red basil is letting me down this year. We’ve grown it successfully for three seasons, but it just doesn’t seem to be coming together this year.
If you know anything about red basil, it’s a fairly slow growing herb. Originally a native of tropical Asia, it offers a strong, warm flavor and added freshness to almost any dish. It also offers a serious nutritional punch because it’s packed with antioxidants, calcium, fiber, Vitamin A, and more. You’ll find many recipes using red basil in Thai cooking, but it’s much more than a cooking herb.
Red basil is nothing short of beautiful. In fact, throughout the US, it’s known primarily as an ornamental. With a strong flavor and scent, it’s the perfect addition to any garden, and there is some evidence that even suggests it works as a mosquito repellant.
As amazing as this little plant is, though, we’re having a hard time finding live, viable seeds anywhere. A quick search will reveal that this doesn’t seem to be its year throughout the U.S.
What’s happening to the red basil?
For more than three seasons, we’ve grown our own plants, harvested our own seeds, and this year, we barely hit fifty plants from the entire crop. As a gardener who build a business on a great set of green thumbs, I am at a loss for words with this one. The seeds simply won’t germinate.
Every cloud has a silver lining, though. The problem has not transferred itself to the green holy basil, so if your goal is simply basil this year, that’s stocked and ready to ship.
I’ll be doing some heavy research on this topic this summer, so stick with us for updates to the red basil conundrum.
